


Wake up Slow

by Bienmoreau



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: And the first thing I’ve put up on here in like 2 years, Idk I just wish we saw more of them being soft af in Santorini, M/M, Yo this is the first fic I’ve written in over a year, also., so here’s a thing that just slightly fleshes out idea I posted on tumblr, when I read the book when it first came out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 11:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20227351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bienmoreau/pseuds/Bienmoreau
Summary: It’s in the tags but. Basically I just missed the boys and wanted to flesh outa thing I posted on tumblr way back in 2017.+a companion editAnyhoo hope y’all want some soft plotless content ‘cause that’s what I got for ya.





	Wake up Slow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wesawbears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesawbears/gifts).

There is a point in this story, a brief limbo in the trajectory of a life otherwise full of uncertainty and challenge and effort, within which everything is calm and quiet for a while. 

On a small island is a small flat on the face of a hill rising over the sea. It is white and blue and terracotta and an olive tree grows in the courtyard below. Looking down from the window of this flat you would see that there is a girl sat on the wall of this courtyard reading in the morning sun and further down where the rocks meet the waves a ship is being made ready by a band of aspiring privateers. Like these two tableaux the island itself has been awake for a while now, the quiet susurration of life and activity weaving into the sounds of the breeze and the waves and the cicadas. 

But all these things are background, they paint picture, a good picture, but one that is held within the frame of a small curved window. 

Through this window, left open to allow the sea air in, sunlight streams across the floor and over two figures sprawled out under white sheets. 

Percy has his face buried in his pillow, his arm flung out off the bed and their sheet tangled around his hips. His other arm is tucked in between their bodies but his hand reaches toward Monty, fingers twisting the hem of his sleep shirt and not letting go even as Monty shifts and wakes, slow and happy as the world comes into focus around him. 

The days here are long and easy, filled with swimming and music and laughter. Monty doesn’t think he could ever have enough of them. 

Especially not when they start with mornings like this, mornings where he gets to roll over the sleeping form of his best friend, the man he loves, has loved for so long now, and finally act on that love. Where he will cover Percy’s back and shoulders with soft kisses until the feeling of his lips and the soft tickle of his hair get too much to sleep though. 

Where he gets to relish in the prospect of yet another morning full of Percy. 

Yet another morning full of getting to touch and be touched. Of sleepy kisses and silly jokes and Percy Percy Percy.

The man in question stirs under him and turns his head to smile a lopsided smile over his shoulder. 

Their eyes meet and Percy sighs a muffled “_G’ morning_” before shutting his eyes again the smile never leaving his lips. 

There is, in that moment, nothing in the whole world that Monty would consider more beautiful. 

Sometimes in the days since they arrived here and the world finally slowed down around them enough for him to catch his breath Monty catches himself off guard in moments like these and wonders if this isn’t all just some extraordinary dream. If he isn’t going to wake any moment now and find himself back in England, back in his fathers house, and Percy once again hideously, heartbreakingly far away while still standing right next to him. 

It’s enough to scare him out of any daydream but luckily their current situation is more than that. 

Percy chuckles into the pillow and Monty realises he must have missed something being said to him, it happens more than he’d like these days what with the ringing in his head and the imbalance of his hearing. Felicity tells him it with quiet with time and that he will adjust to only having one ear, Monty wants to believe that she’s right but that would mean admitting that his ear won’t, in fact, grow back eventually. 

Percy rolls over in the space under Monty’s arm and tangles his legs with Monty’s curling in against the pale skin of Monty’s hip and pressing his own kiss there.

_ “That was a nice my to wake up. What time is it?”  _

_ “Oh late enough for it to be indecent to still be in bed but early enough that no ones going to come looking.”  _

Percy huffs a laugh but there is a flash of something in his eyes and he reaches a hand up to brush the hair on Monty’s good side back behind his ear. Letting his finger tips trail down over his cheek and neck to rest over his collarbone as he takes Monty in. 

“_So beautiful_” it’s said on a soft breath, so quiet in the air between them and Monty flushes a little at the sincerity of it, he would have had liked to have a witty comeback except that this all still rather a lot and they’re still getting used to speaking so plainly about these long kept secrets and his head feels like it might start spinning again so instead he just leans forward and presses his head to Percy’s chest and lets his breathing match the heartbeat he hears drumming away in there. He can’t deny the dimples though or the way that such a simple thing makes him feel invincible. It’s a startling feeling and takes Monty by storm, so much like the time he sat waiting to be collected from Eaton. Only this time, after everything they had been through that surge of defiance and righteous wasn’t that of a naive boy sure that things would always go his way, but of a man who knew now that his father was nothing more than a flawed and angry man who would never get the chance to hurt him like that again. That no matter what his father had taught him then, he was right. The unshakable surety that they were doing nothing wrong swelled inside him like it never had before and almost brought him to tears. 

His hand came up and he gripped at Percy’s fingers and drew in a heavy sigh. 

“_Is it a day for staying in bed my love?” _

Monty just nods against him and slumps further into Percy’s open arms and lets his free hand come up to run though his hair. 

Maybe later they’ll go walking, or Percy will play violin. Scipio will no doubt call them down for dinner later on and Felicity will want to play doctor with his face for a while. But all these this fade to the background lost among the cicadas and crash of waves. The wind picks up and the leaves outside the widow clamour with it but all Monty can hear his Percy’s heart and the way his breathing matches his own and with Percy’s arms around him all he can think is how abso-bloody-lutely perfect this moment is. 


End file.
